“What….” I gasp, as the wind carries away and leaves the girl alone. She appears elegant, though wouldn’t she be a bit angry that we’re intruding?
The first word that comes to mind is Aviva, but it’s obviously not her. This girl’s features are much more prominent, with abnormally high cheekbones, orbs as bright as high beams of a car, yet the smallest mouth I’ve ever seen on a living thing.
I raise my hand, as if to wave, and she opens her mouth slightly.
She’s not speaking.
Suddenly I feel a ticking, nagging, stinging pain in the center of my head, with a sound like metal on metal, the shrieking, the feeling of torture…
In anguish, I crouch into a ball on the wet cobblestone and cover my head with my arms, It’s just too loud…
I open my mouth to scream, to block out the noise and pain-it’s so strong I cannot tell if I am shrieking or not.
It stops.
The pain, world, everything. Nothing. My life is full of emptiness as I lift my head and see a blank, white landscape. Well-not exactly. The cobblestone, road, buildings, walls, are still there-but coated in an opaque, snow-colored liquid. I go up to the wall, pressing my fingertip-it’s a shell, no imprint of my finger is made. An outer-casing, as if to conceal something.
I back up, hitting my spine against a figure, which I turn to in utter terror.
The mother.
Her eyes are still open, yet they’re paralyzed with fright. Her whole, entire body is dripping with the white liquid, freezing her and hardening by the second. Her mouth wide open in shock, hands out, palms upward, as if trying to make the liquid stop spilling on her.
“Hello?” I whisper, rubbing her arm, wishing for a reaction from her frozen face. She remains steady on the ground, and I lift my hand-
No. No, the noise, the deafening noise, it’s in my head again. Before I think about screaming I feel something climbing up my legs, like satin or silk. I look down to see the liquid attaching and climbing up my calves, rooting me to the ground.
Hello. Such a simple saying, but it feels like someone’s imprinting it into my skin and screaming, making me clutch my head in anguish. The same girl who had materialized from the wind appears after I blink, a vibrant thing in such a bland landscape.
“STOP!” I cry. I feel so weak that I feel like collapsing, yet with the white liquid creeping up towards my stomach I have no possible way to fall.
No. Her answer is as bland as the landscape. I squint my eyes, to both block out the pain and to get a good look at her, because she’s different.
Very different.
“Why aren’t you….grey?” I almost ask myself, as calmly as I can.
Her eyes turn the color of blood and fire as she lifts her hands and disappears into thin air.
I’m no different than you, merely an older sorier. I blink from the sudden answer and she’s standing closer, only a couple feet from me.
What is your name? Her mouth closes, even though her questions are still entering my conscious.
“Naomi,” I whimper, as I take in her features.
Instead of the usual grey, her skin pure white, yet almost gritty, like sand. Her eyes….they don’t have a color, switching from violet, ruby, emerald, even as grey as stone, flickering. A thin veil of orange strands covers her down to her shoulders and sways as she walks toward me.
“What do you want?” I yell, trying to back away, but I forget of the white shell encasing my lower legs. I stumble and hit the ground, causing a sharp pain in my back. She looms over me, her disposition so powerful it makes me want to sink into the white shell entirely.
To know why you disrupted my sleep.
“What?”
She sits on the ground against the walls of a building and fluttering her eyes closed.
I was in an eternal sleep, never to wake again. Her eyes open, now the color of sapphire. Until you and her came in. The power of two soriers was too much that I had to wake up and stop you two before bad things would start to happen.
“Bad things? Like what?” Yet, do I really want to know?
When did you die?
“I-” I stop, tenderly touching the back of my head. “The pain-it’s gone,” I say incredulously.
It’s always painful at first, now answer the question. Her expression is sour, her small lips pursing as she demands an answer from me.
“Just a couple days ago!”
Her expression drops, as does mine.
“What?”
Come with me. She holds a hand out and I climb to my feet, the white shell melting into the floor. She closes her eyes and whispers, the landscape changing with a snap of her fingers. First it’s blinding, but the light dims and we find ourselves next to a road covered in snow.
“What is this?” I query, befuddled for almost the tenth time that day. My breath hitches when I notice a stain on the edge of the road, in the snow.
A blood stain. Her eyes shift towards me, now a soft, dark lavender.
This is where you died, Naomi. And we’re going to figure out what caused it.
BINABASA MO ANG
Five Minutes
Paranormal"That's when I heard a pop, and the daughter stood stock-still. I saw her look down at her chest, wondering what had happened-but I already knew. She collapsed, falling into a heap of snow. Her mother cried out weakly, seeing her little girl with...
